SDG 17: Partnerships for the Goals

6 min readNov 26, 2020

By Fran H.

Partnerships and the SDGs

What is “Partnerships for the Goals”?

Partnerships for the Goals is the 17th Sustainable Development Goal (SDG), which aims to achieve cross-country collaboration and policy alignment in pursuit of all other SDGs by the year 2030(1). This one goal has 17 separate targets broken down into five categories including: finance, technology, capacity building, trade, and systemic issues (2) (see diagram below).

Desired results consist of: improved and fairer trade, increased exports from developing countries, and a more equal distribution of investment initiatives to promote sustainability(3). This will lead to strengthened cooperation between nations of all levels of development, using the SDGs as shared vision for the future and leading to mutually beneficial changes for all stakeholders.

The Challenges

Barriers to achieving Partnerships for the Goals
Work on implementing Partnerships for the Goals has been consistent across recent years, but been subjected to many challenges in the form of: financial resources, trade tension, a lack of data and of course the global pandemic(4).

Financial Resources
As with most SDGs, the greatest barrier is ensuring adequate investment. The international target is to keep Official Development Assistance (ODA) at or above 0.7% of gross national income, however in 2019 this was only met by five countries(5). In 2019, net ODA totalled $147.4 billion(6), with aid to Africa rising by 1.3% from 2018, and aid to the LDCs overall increasing by 2.6%(6). This amount, although steady year on year, is below target.

Covid-19 and 2020

Primarily due to Covid-19, remittances to low and middle-income countries (an economic lifeline to many poor households) are projected to fall from $554 billion in 2019 to $445 billion in 2020(1). Additionally, global foreign direct investment is expected to decline by up to 40%(1).

The Digital Divide
The global pandemic has led to many of us increasing our reliance on technology for work, shopping, education and socialisation. This, whilst potentially facilitating global communications and the formation of partnerships e.g. online conferences and business meetings for those that are connected, has also shone a light on the disparity that exists with countries that have fallen behind digitally.

Almost half of the world’s population (46.4% by the end of 2019) is not connected online, particularly in LDC countries(1). A stark example of this is can be shown from 2018, when only 26% of sub-Saharan Africa were using the internet, compared with 84% in Europe and North America(1). LDCs were shown to have virtually no fixed-broadband connections, thought to be owed to the high cost and lack of local infrastructure(1).

Humanitarian crises

Conflict and natural disasters are also still major challenges in many places throughout the world, which may too increase in future as a result of climate change. Countries adversely affected require very high levels of financial resources and aid, and so rely on a greater amount of ODA in order to cope and encourage growth and trade which may not be available at the current time(7).

If these barriers are not addressed and result in slowing the progress of Partnerships for the Goals, it will have a huge impact on the progress of SDGs, leading to some experts referring to SDG17 as one of the most important SDG of them all (8). Communication, partnerships and funding are all vital to ensure an international effort and an agreed policy framework to move towards a more sustainable future. Without this alignment, there could be a disparity in progress across the world with reduced investment going towards LDCs. This is detrimental as these may be areas where SDGs require the most focus, for example the education of women, and because we know the SDGs require international effort, for example when fighting climate change.

The Development

What has been achieved so far, and what will be achieved?

At a high level, we can see that in 2019 the world:

Gave $554 billion given in remittances to low and middle-income countries(9)
Still managed to provide around $119 Billion in ODA during a global pandemic(10)
Had 4.57 billion people connected to the internet (11)

Financial support is a good indicator on the progress of this goal, however the true power is in the partnerships that have formed because of it.

Case Study: Empowering Youth and Public-Private partnerships through more efficient agro-food value chains in Nigeria.

What?: An innovative programme that ran from August 2018–2019 aiming to improve food security and nutrition, and alleviate poverty by ensuring that farmers in Nigeria benefitted from a stronger local value chain(12). The Kaduna State replicable model aimed to promote agro-food value chain development, food and nutrition security and youth employment(12).

Who?: The programme was supported by a public-private partnership between the SDG Fund, UN Agencies, Sahara Group, the Roca Brothers (world-famous chefs), Nigerian National Government and Kaduna State Government(12).

Why?: Nigeria has the highest population of any country in Africa, and 61% of the country have lived in absolute poverty over the last decade(12). Food security has also become a struggle across Sub-Saharan Africa, with Nigeria seeing an increased reliance on food imports since the 1980s. Moreover, Nigeria has an estimated 50 million young people out of work, with highest rates amongst rural women(12). In response, the Government has tried to diversify the economy away from oil and gas, and into agriculture.

How?: The programme supported public-private partnerships to create a business model which boosts local agriculture and establish a local food processing facility(12). The programme also aimed to expand the market access of farmers, providing them with opportunities for decent jobs and reducing hunger and nutritional problems across the state, leading to sustainable economic growth(12). The local youth were also empowered to by improvements both in technical and business management skills.

Results: The Food Africa joint programme reached 246 farmers and 15 cooperative farmer groups over 6 months, who benefitted from skills training and access to equipment, minimizing post-harvest losses. The Sahara Foundation is now committed to operating the food processing facility beyond the programme period to help secure contracts for many of the 246 farmers(12). Business management training was also provided for 62 young people and women, leading to the development of 62 profitable business plans which can help these people turn their small-scale farming practices into a large-scale agricultural business(12).

Response to Covid-19

Efforts to fund SDG-17 have been thwarted during 2020, during the Covid-19 pandemic, however this has led to an overwhelming sense across the world that we can “build back better” and more sustainably.Covid-19 requires the participation of all Governments, the private sector, and citizens of the world.

The UN Secretary-General has devised a strategy for how the global network can show a powerful and organised reaction to the pandemic, with the 2020 Financing for Economical Advancement Report aiming to measure the size of the impact from the global slow down and economic crisis, with a specific lens on the poorest nations(13). These poorest nations they hope will be supported by the UN Reaction and Trust Fund, set up in response (13)2.

SDG 17: Partnerships for the Goals

Written by YESEuropeUK

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